Balance of Power
by paganpunk2
Summary: When Superman's massive strength accidentally costs innocent lives, it's up to Nightwing to remind him that powers are what you make of them - no matter what Batman might say otherwise. Set between 'Tectonic Doom' and 'The Silent Treatment.' K for mention of death and very mild swearing.


**Author's Note: Here's a short, sweet little scene between Superman and Nightwing. It falls into the same universe as 'Tectonic Doom' and 'The Silent Treatment', and occurs in the gap between those two pieces. Enjoy!**

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><p>"Thought I might find you here. It's a good spot for thinking."<p>

Superman didn't have to look around to know who was stepping up beside him. "Looks like I don't have your family's talent for hiding how I feel," he remarked.

"Don't sell yourself short," Nightwing advised. "Everybody knows you're upset, but I don't think many of them realize just _how_ upset you are." He paused. "…Nice view."

"It is," he agreed. North America sat below them, a slow dawn beginning on her east coast while aurora still danced in the darkened skies to the north and west. A hundred-odd families down there had spent the last twenty-four hours in mourning, he knew, and it was entirely his fault. "As for my being extremely upset, I would ask how _you_ know that when so many of them don't, but-"

"But you've already got your suspicions on that front," the younger man finished for him, chuckling. "I know. Batman told me. He wasn't very happy about it."

"I don't understand his aversion to the idea that you have a heightened perception of people's emotions. There's no shame in it."

"No, there isn't. Frankly, I think it's a pride issue. You know…the whole 'I'm just a plain old human being but I can outdo people with superpowers' thing."

"His damn _pride_," Superman shook his head. His eyes stung suddenly. _It wasn't fair, Bruce. What you said wasn't fair at all._

"So...what did he do to make you feel so much worse than you already did?" Nightwing asked quietly. "And don't try to argue. I've seen that look on your face enough times to know when he's being a less-than-stellar friend."

"It goes back to his thing with superpowers," he sighed. "He said...he said that maybe if I wasn't quite so strong I could have gotten the criminals without destabilizing an entire office block." Every word hurt as he repeated it. _Not fair, Bruce. Not fair..._

Nightwing winced. "Oof. That's, ah…a bit harsh."

"Something like that." How was he supposed to have known that the box truck he'd punched out of commission and sent sliding into a concrete pillar some thirty hours earlier would cause said pillar to crack? Thoughts on structural engineering had ranked well below those related to stopping the men inside the vehicle from shipping a passel of kidnapped girls off into the sex trade, at least at the time. He'd had no reason to think that the damaged support would give out at mid-morning, when the building was full of innocent workers and he was miles away. _It wasn't my fault. I was trying to help..._

At the same time that he knew it wasn't his fault, though, he also knew that Batman was right. If he wasn't so strong – if he was Batman, for example – he would have been forced to use a different method to stop the fiends, and the hundred lost lives would never have been put at risk. As much as he hated that his ally had said something so cruel to him when he was already suffering, he hated the fact that he was correct even more. _It isn't my fault...and it is, too. Damn it..._

"They inspected the building before the work day started, you know," Nightwing said gently. "People whose job it is to say yea or nay on structural integrity cleared the damage as being non-catastrophic. I'm not trying to push the blame off on them, because I can't imagine that they would have said it was okay if they thought there was any chance it wasn't, but I _am _trying to take it off of you." Superman looked over as a gloved hand landed on his shoulder. "All you did was your job, Supes. What more can any of us do?"

"...Didn't I give _you_ that same advice once?"

"Yeah. Seems like you sort of forgot it in the meantime, though, so I thought I'd pass it back." The younger man smiled. "The point is that your guilt shouldn't even be a thing. On the topic of Batman..." His visage became pensive. "You know I'll defend him to my dying breath, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize that sometimes he's an asshole. This is one of those times."

The mere fact that Nightwing felt that way gave Superman a ray of hope. If he could chalk Bruce's accusation up to being just another of his jerk moments, maybe it meant that all those deaths really _weren't_ his fault. Before he could settle on that excuse, a nasty voice piped up in the back of his head to remind him that many of Batman's crueler comments were only hurtful because they consisted of a flatly delivered truth. Perhaps _that_ was the case here, it pressed, and Nightwing was just too kind to see it for what it was. "...Maybe," he allowed, torn.

A low hum sounded. Suddenly the figure beside him peeled away and strode forward to the control panel next to the ersatz window. Superman watched him pass his fingers over the touchscreen, selecting, scrolling, shaking his head. "Ah-ha," he murmured finally, and stepped away. "There," he gestured towards the screen. "Maybe that will convince you that you're not a horrible person for using your powers when you need to."

"...Elephants?" He shot Nightwing a quizzical look. The bird's eye view they now had of a heard of pachyderms roaming across the Serengeti was lovely, but he couldn't see what it had to do with his guilt over an event on the other side of the world. "No offense, pal, but they're more your thing than mine."

"Yes, but they illustrate my point."

"Your point?"

"'Nature's masterpiece; an elephant. The only harmless great thing.' John Donne wrote that, and he was right."

"...I'm still not quite with you." Confused as he was, though, he found himself intrigued.

"You and Batman are both great," Nightwing explained. "Very great, in fact. But neither of you are harmless. That's not your fault, it's just a condition of...well, of not being an elephant, to stick to the quote. So you've got to throw the idea of never causing harm right out of your head and replace it with this; it's not about being harmless, it's about preventing more harm than you cause. And you do that, Uncle Clark," he whispered. "You really do. I know, because I've been watching you stack those scales for most of my life. Let me just say, it's been pretty inspirational."

His eyes were hot again, but this time he didn't mind. Dick's words had muffled the negative voice in the rear of his mind, and with the quieting of that uncertainty came the clarity he'd lost in the face of his old friend's bluntness. Yes, he'd caused harm with his powers in the basement of that now-collapsed building – great harm, in fact – but how much more had he prevented? How many young women and girls had been saved from a horrible fate because he'd shut down the ring that would have snatched their freedom away over the next five, ten, twenty years? It was certainly more than a hundred, and while that didn't make him feel each death that had occurred any less acutely it at least let him stop believing that he deserved to be punished for his well-intentioned action.

More importantly, he mused, how many lives had been saved in the past by the mere fact that he had powers and was willing to use them? He'd lost count long ago, but he knew that the person at his side was one of them. That by itself made him grateful for the extra strength and speed that Batman had commented on the previous evening. "...Inspirational, huh?" he repeated, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.

"You ask that like you didn't already know."

He laughed and clapped the younger man on the shoulder. "I guess I did, deep down," he confessed. "It's just nice to hear it verified."

"Sure." A beat passed. "...What about Batman? Think you can forgive him for the bajillionth time?"

"You know, if he had to give out a nickel every time someone had to forgive him for something he'd be broke, and we both know that that's saying something. But...it's like you said; he might cause harm, but he prevents a lot more of it than he creates." Who knew how long he might have stewed over the disaster had Batman's words not driven his despair to the point where Nightwing not only noticed, but decided to intervene? The cowled man's remark had been hurtful and unfair, but it had also led to this moment, and that wasn't half-bad.

"Yeah...he does." He stretched then, a yawn tearing from his throat. "Since you're feeling better now, I think I might go see just what kind of harm he was busy preventing last night. You going to watch the elephants for a while?"

"Maybe I will," he nodded. "We'll see."

"Awesome. I'll see you later, then."

"Good night, pal. See you later." When he was gone, Superman turned back to the image on the wall. Maybe he _would_ watch the elephants for a bit, if only to help him dwell on the inspirational-in-his-own-right person who had just departed. Or maybe, he mused instead, he would zoom in and watch the morning arrive at a certain mansion on the outskirts of Gotham. It would be comforting to know that there were several great men safely asleep inside, even if one of them was a bit of an asshole.

Laughing at himself – _I swear, Bruce, you'd have been cast out of society by now if it wasn't for the boy of yours –_ he moved towards the control panel to adjust the view.


End file.
